


eve is gone again

by openended



Series: Bomb in a Birdcage [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Casual Magic, F/F, Fire, Introspection, Quiet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 09:50:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3245198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>some silly little girl comes searching for the fears I have taken from her shoulders</i>. After "Here Lies the Abyss," Josephine looks in on her lover, who thought she wanted to be alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eve is gone again

Josephine stands in the doorway, quietly watching. Ariadne comes here sometimes to be alone and clear her head, but Cullen had strongly suggested to Josephine that she might need the company tonight.

(“It’s hers to tell,” he’d said, “but I suspect the fear demon did not manifest in spiders for her.”)

Ariadne is fascinating to watch, sitting on the stone ramparts amongst the stars, opening and closing her right hand around a ball of flame. The flame splits into five smaller ones, sliding down to her fingertips; she moves her fingers through the air as if conducting music and the bits of fire follow, until she closes her hand again and the flames extinguish.

She snaps her fingers and a spark appears in her left hand. She rolls the spark across her knuckles as a magician would a coin. Down to her pinky, back to her thumb, down again, back and forth. “Did Cullen send you?”

Josephine startles, unaware that she’d been noticed. “If you would prefer to be alone, I would understand.”

The spark pauses, and with a flick of her fingers Ariadne throws it to the sky and it explodes over the valley below. “It’s alright.”

The air’s always warmer near Ariadne, even in Skyhold’s chilly nights when the wind blows through the cracks they’ve not yet repaired, and Josephine doesn’t even notice that she’s outside on top of the walls without a coat.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

A new spark appears, and then another, and Ariadne sends them dancing and chasing each other around Josephine’s head until she sits. She pulls the sparks back to her and closes her palm around them.

“He suggested I come up, yes.”

Josephine watches as Ariadne continues, creating flame and spark out of thin air and manipulating them to her will. She recognizes routine and repetition, focus and pattern, and a slow relaxation to Ariadne’s shoulders. Mages can be terrifyingly powerful and Ariadne is no exception, but Josephine’s never once feared her magic. As Ariadne so casually draws fiery designs in the air and slowly curls the flames around her arms and fingers, Josephine wonders if she hasn’t been naive not to be scared.

“He worries,” Ariadne says after several minutes of silence. A small flame twines around her forearm, up to her shoulder, and then falls down her skin like water into her open palm. “I think sometimes he forgets that I am not just his friend with magic powers, but a senior enchanter.”

Josephine puts her hand on Ariadne’s knee. “I do not think he is worried simply for your physical safety, Ari. Nor am I.”

Ariadne sighs softly. “I know,” she whispers.

“What did you see in the fear demon?”

She stiffens for the briefest of moments, but long enough for Josephine to notice her discomfort and move slightly closer, supportive. Her flames burn brighter - stronger, angrier - and then calm again.

“A man who has been dead a very long time, by my own hand,” she says, distant, and leans into the arm Josephine settles around her waist.

Ariadne pulls the flames toward her and closes her hands around the flickering coil. When she opens her palms, she sends the ball of fire floating upward into the air by itself. It hovers above the ramparts, shimmering until it shatters into hundreds of little pieces, falling slowly downward. With a subtle twist of her palm, Ariadne gently halts their descent. The tiny shards swirl around each other in a silent maelstrom of orchestrated confusion. One by one, they blink out.

Josephine’s overcome with sadness, but cannot pinpoint why.

“I’m sorry,” Ariadne suddenly snaps back to herself, and the remaining flames rush into her open hand and disappear with a _whoosh_. “I would rather not talk about this tonight. It has been a long, strange day.”

“I understand,” Josephine says, and rises with Ariadne. “Would you…” their relationship is still new, growing into what it will become, and for all her political and social training, finding the right words to ask a woman she cares for if she would like company in her bed tonight seems impossible.

Luckily, she is saved from stumbling over her words by Ariadne having the same thought.

“Stay with me tonight?”

Ariadne’s masked the desperation from her voice, but even in the dark Josephine sees the lingering terror in Ariadne’s eyes. Solitude may be familiar, but Ariadne’s been around this particular pain long enough to know it isn’t always best.

Josephine smiles and laces her fingers through Ariadne’s. Her staff-calloused palm is warm against Josephine’s. “Of course. Lead the way.” Though she well knows the path to the Inquisitor’s quarters, she lets Ariadne set their pace.

***

Cullen looks outside his window across the courtyard, looking upward to the rampart that his friend has claimed as her own quiet space. Two little lights chase each other up into the sky. He follows them until he can no longer distinguish the lights from stars, and he nods, relieved. She must’ve gone inside, with Josephine, safe tonight.

 


End file.
